All that History Gives You
by coldthing
Summary: Nazis, homicidal Catholics, and Severus Snape’s cousins, Harry certainly has his hands full of people trying to kill him this year.
1. Yorkshire Summer

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and C.S. Lewis owns Digory Kirke. I'm not creative enough to come up with either.

Rating: PG-13 to light R (for swearing, violence, and general misanthropy)

Spoilers: Sixth Year AU (elements of HBP incorporated)

Summery: Nazis, homicidal Catholics, and Severus Snape's cousins, Harry certainly has his hands full of people trying to kill him this year.

All That History Gives You

By coldthing

Part I: Yorkshire Summer

Harry Potter left Privet Drive at about ten that night dragging his trunk behind him. It was the middle of the summer, and whatever hope he had had about this summer being even slightly more tolerable than any other summer had been dashed when Vernon Dursley had realized Moody probably wasn't going to make good on his threats. It had gone back to how it had been before he had left for Hogwarts. He had no leverage left on them, no magic powers, no psychotic godfather (just the mere thought of that made him bite his lip and want to find someplace very small to disappear into, he endeavored _not _to think about that as much as possible and was rarely successful at it), and certainly no Aurors.

Maybe five years ago he would have just accepted his treatment but now, he knew, not matter how reckless and pig headed he was, there was _something _out there that wasn't the Dursley's. The last straw had been Aunt Petunia's bony-handed stinging slap to his cheek an hour before. They'd never laid a hand on him before, only berated him for his freakishness

Harry fumed, let them cook their own breakfast and see how badly they arse it up!

Ten minutes later he exited the ward boundaries as he stepped off the pavement on Privet Drive and turned into Oak Ridge Lane. He'd spent much of the summer scouting around the neighborhood locating the exact ward boundaries. He felt the tell tale prickle run up his spine as he stepped outside of the wards. He half expected to see people rushing from the bushes to bundle him back to the supposed safety of Number Four. But there was no sign of any of his guard rushing out of he bushes to insist that he return immediately to number four, where they insisted he might possibly if he squinted really hard be safe. That or hordes of Death Eaters would descend upon him.

Instead, there was nothing.

He would take the Knight Bus he decided. Somewhere. The Burrow. Maybe he would spend the rest of the summer at the Leaky Cauldron. It wasn't like he didn't have enough money.

A small tawny barn owl had swooped low over the carefully manicured trees of Little Whinging and landed on his head. It pecked hard at his scalp before it let him wrestle it off. Then as Harry untied the note from its leg the owl bit his finger. It then flew away with an annoyed hoot. The whole exchange took less than a minute

"Bloody bird" Harry sucked on his bitten finger and unfolded the letter.

_Mr. Potter_

The letter began.

_Since you refuse to have any common sense in regards to your safety, other arrangements have been made for you this summer. Enclosed is a train ticket. If you retain a single iota of good judgment you will use it._

_Severus Snape._

_"_Figures it was his bird"

The enclosed train ticket was from Bansted station to the outer reaches of the Yorkshire countryside. So Harry sat down at the Muggle bus stop and waited for the bus that would take him to the train station.

That was how Harry had ended up sitting in a rattling BR coach at one in the morning waiting for the train to finally arrive in according to the train ticket Groton-on-Ware. Which according to his rail map was exactly in the middle of nowhere, and barely rated the classification of village. It was probably just a pub, a church and a few farms.

When he had first gotten on the train he had noticed its emptiness. It wasn't one of the shinny new privately owned trains; instead it was a rattling, battered proper old BR coach. Some how relived, he curled up in his seat and cried.

Harry kicked his trunk in anger as the train finally started to slow into Groton-on-Ware. His earlier despair had given way to anger, and by the time the train came to his destination he had worked himself into a foul mood. He kicked his trunk again rattling Hedwig's cage. He was of half a mind to just stay on the train and ride to the end of the line and then disappear or something.

He reminded himself that that was the angry pig headed side of him that probably shouldn't be indulged. He would get off at Groton-on-Ware where he probably would be safe and he wouldn't have to deal with the Dursley's, and when he thought logically about it Snape, or what ever had been arranged for him was probably better than the Dursley's.

The station at which the train pulled in was little more than a raised yellow brick platform with a few broken down benches and a weathered sign. A dirt road ran by the platform to the left, and thick dark trees obscured the rest of the area. Harry could hear a river somewhere to his left and scattered in the distance were faint lights.

Harry collected his trunk, Hedwig, and dragged himself off the train. The air outside was thick and soupy. His throat stung from the sudden readjustment from the cold air-conditioned coach.

Then he looked around as the train rattled off suddenly feeling very stupid. He was standing alone on a platform in the left of nowhere in Yorkshire waiting for somebody, and the platform was empty. One of the lights flickered and in the distance Harry could head some kind of animal rustling in the underbrush. He stiffened. He put his trunk and Hedwig's cage down and carefully fingered his wand in his back pocket.

"Harry Potter?" Some one suddenly said to his left. " Lets see in then"

"See what?" Harry snapped. It took most of his will power to throw a hex at who ever this was.

Harry found himself facing a small, skinny, black haired woman with dark brown eyes, and an unpleasantly familiar narrow face. She was dressed in black workpants, work boots, and a dark sweatshirt despite the midsummer heat. She might have been rather pretty if her small thin mouth had not been set into an unpleasant sneer.

"Your scar. And give me the letter"

"Letter?"

Harry, still holding Hedwig's cage tightly in one hand, and supporting his trunk with the other, shook his head sideways in an effort to move his hair off his forehead. He failed and the woman leaned in uncomfortably close to him, and roughly brushed the hair off his forehead with a grubby finger before leaning back. Harry felt her rough finger brush over his scar. The woman stank of chemical fertilizer and hothouse flowers. The smell made his empty stomach lurch.

"The one Severus sent you," she said apparently not caring about the effect her sudden unexpectedly intimate touch had on Harry.

Harry flinched at the casual use of his Potion's Professor's first name, but handed the letter over. The woman turned it over between her long fingers and gingerly opened in read it and then stuffed it into the back pocket of her work pants

She nodded to Harry obviously satisfied with the results of both him and the parchment, but she did not look any less sullen.

"Abigail Adler" she said without further preamble " Cars' over there"

Harry didn't budge; he was again struck by the unpleasant sense of familiarity with the woman, as well as a profound sense of distrust. " How do I know your not one of Voldemort's agents" He blurted, and was surprisingly relieved when Ms. Adler didn't flinch at You-Know-Who's name. She in fact didn't even bat an eyelid.

She swung her black hair over her shoulder with a neat flick of her head and scuffed her black work boots against the dirt in annoyance. "Would a death eater drive a pile of shite like that?" She cocked her head over at the car; a yellow Fiat missing half it's front bumper. Harry had to admit a death eater would _not _drive a pile of shite like that. A death eater would in fact not drive at all.

"Can I see you arms? Please?"

"My arms?"

"For the mark"

"Don't be an arse Potter. I'm a just a mere muggle." She spat at him. But she still rolled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. No mark, just smears of dirt, grease and dead plant matter. She rolled her sleeves back down.

That matter settled Ms. Adler helped Harry load his trunk into the boot of the tiny Fiat, and then strapped it closed with bungee cords, as the car's boot could not contain Harry's school truck with out help. Hedwig's cage with Hedwig inside went on the cramped back seat and Harry got into the passenger's side next to Ms. Adler. Hedwig hooted indignantly at him as he pushed his seat back further in an attempt to get more legroom.

Ms. Adler started the car, at these close quarters with her; she really did stink of plant fertilizer. It was making him a little dizzy.

The drive was not long and they spent it in silence. Harry spent most of the time watching Ms. Adler. Her grim expression didn't change for the whole ride and if possible it deepened when the Fiat pulled into the driveway of a tiny stone cottage.

There were no streetlights on the road. Harry could not make out any details beyond what the Fiat's headlights had illuminated. He could tell there was another cottage to the right of him, and noises behind him told him that there was a cow-pasture nearby. The particular cottage that the Fiat was parked in front of was engaged in a slow slat to the left. Thick climbing plants of indeterminate species covered most of the front, and appeared to be making a very successful bid to pull off the cottage's fresh thatch. To the left of the cottage Harry could make out a greenhouse.

A small sign was set into the stone wall surrounding the front garden. ÔGreen Cottage' it read.

"Get your bird Mr. Potter. I'll bring your trunk in the morning"

Harry hauled Hedwig's cage out of the back seat and followed Ms. Adler towards the cottage.

"May I let her out?" He asked. " She doesn't like being locked up at night"

""Yes, I should think so."

Harry put her cage down the walkway in front of the cottage and opened the door to Hedwig's cage. His owl hopped out and after nibbling at his fingers affectionately took off and disappeared into the night.

"Finished?" asked Ms. Adler.

"Yes."

She fumbled with her key ring and pushed open the cottage door. She switched on the light and looked back at Harry.

In the better light Harry could see how closely spaced Adler's features were. Her hair looked unwashed and had frown lines at the sides of her mouth.

"I'm going to make tea since I'm not going to be getting anymore sleep tonight" She continued, the tone of her voice implied that it was entirely his fault that he wouldn't be getting anymore sleep. "Would you like some?"

"No thanks"

"Then go to bed. You're room is the first on the left"

It took a moment for Harry to realize where he was. He was in a bed, not in his bed he amended, the mattress was lumpy and so were the pillows. Sunlight streamed into the small room from a single square window above the bed. A feather stuck out of the corner of his pillow tickling his ear. The sheets were threadbare, but very clean. Folded on the end of the bed was a brightly colored quilt that had quite obviously seen much better days.

It was almost like the Burrow, almost, but not quite. The whole room leaned to the left.

The right wall of the small room curved inwards towards the center. The left wall curved out so that it must curve in again in the room next door. The walls were a patch work of blocks of rough cut stone, pale modern mortar, and yellowing mortar, shot through with brown horse-hair that Harry was sure dated back to before the turn of the century. The room wasn't any bigger than Dudley's second bedroom, though infinitely more welcoming, though the dimensions were much more awkward.

He could hear voices through the unvarnished floorboards. There was an older male voice and the voice he recognized as Abigail Adler, his new would-be guardian. Below the human voices, two owls squawked querulously. He could smell bacon and eggs frying.

The thought of Abigail Adler's oh-so-familiar sneer brought back night before came back to him in a rush. Harry quickly rolled out of bed and pulled on yesterday's clothing that he had haphazardly strewn around the room the night before.

He exited the room on to the second floor landing of the cottage. Beneath his bare feet the floorboards creaked ominously.

"Mr. Potter if would do your character a great credit for you _not _to lurk up there" Ms. Adler's voice drifted up from the ground floor.

" And Mr. Potter" said the other male voice. "Please relieve these owl's of your post and get rid of them before they relieve us of our breakfast"

Harry hurried down the cottage's creaking stairs and came into a remarkably cluttered kitchen. It, like the rest of the cottage seemed to be barely big enough to contain the necessary furniture. And like the rest of the cottage, it slanted distinctively to the left.

The kitchen managed to contain a fairly good-sized kitchen table, a bank of cabinets and attendant counters with a small fridge stuffed neatly between them and a ridiculously old gas stove. A chimney and a wood stove squatted, unused in the corer of the room.

At the back of the kitchen an uneven hole had been cut into the stone wall and a door to the greenhouse that Harry had spotted the night before had been placed set into it. Beyond the door was a lush wall of unseasonable greenery.

Hedwig and the bad tempered owl from the night before were perched on the back of a kitchen chair fighting over a kipper.

Ms. Adler and two old men sat at the table. Alder was deftly cutting toast into the most neat and precise soldiers Harry had ever seen. She wore a black long sleeved shirt and black jeans. She looked up at Harry as he entered the kitchen and smiled tightly at him. "Morning Mr. Potter" she said and got up from the table, as she busied herself spooning eggs and bacon onto a plate for Harry.

The older of the two old men sitting at the table looked over at Harry appraisingly. "So you're the famous Harry Potter," He said, with a hint of amusement.

He was tall and skinny with a lot of very white hair and square glasses perched in the bird's nest of hair on top of his head. He wore a tweed sport coat over a very wrinkled white shirt. He had parchments stuck haphazardly into the pockets of his sport coat and a wand poked out form his left sleeve. He reminded Harry of Dumbledore, a Dumbledore who was just a slightly eccentric old man, instead of completely incomprehensibly alien. Which, Harry decided, was probably not the worst thing to remind him of. At least he didn't have that unpleasant familiarity that Ms. Adler produced in him

He held out his hand for Harry to shake " Its good to finally meet you Mr. Potter, Albus has told me so much about you. I'm Digory Kirke"

" Its nice to meet you Mr. Kirke." Harry shook his hand as he sat down, shooing Hedwig and the other owl off his chair.

Hedwig obediently left the back of his chair and flew in circles around the kitchen before alighting on to of the fridge where she looked down imperiously at Harry.

"Just Digory please"

"If you don't mind sir, I'd rather not"

Kirke looked blank for a moment then understanding dawned on his face.

"Oh course. How insensitive of me"

The other owl squawked and took a dive at Kirke's hands before the older wizard shooed him towards Harry with a sweep of his wand.

The dark owl again bit Harry's finger as he attempted to retrieve his mail from it. " Bastard!" he told the owl which slowly blinked at him and then turned to finish the kipper Hedwig had abandoned.

Harry sucked on his finger again and tuned the envelope over to open it.

_Mr. Potter_

_If this letter has found you, then you may have more common sense than I had originally thought. Congratulations._

_Only the Headmaster and I know your current location. Not now or ever shall your friends be told of your whereabouts. They have been informed that they may longer send you owls because of security measures enacted at Privet Drive. I have no illusions as to your temperament and that you will find some way to contact your friends through Green Cottage's wards. Nevertheless, may I attempt to impress upon you the absolute necessity of secrecy in this situation. _

_Mrs. Adler is one of the Order's greatest secretes. She must remain that way. Her location must remain hidden if not for your own safety, than for hers. You might remember there are other people in this war; you would do well to consider their safety._

Beside him, there was a flurry of feathers as Mrs. Adler shooed the owls out of the kitchen and into the back garden.

_Professor Sprout tells me your Herbology marks are competent enough that you may be able to help her with her work in repayment for her protection._

_Severus Snape_

Mrs. Adler put a heaping plate of bacon and eggs in front of him, a pile of meticulous slices of toast sat next to the eggs. Harry had never been presented with such a tremendous amount of food outside of Hogwarts or the Burrow.

"I'm to work then. Explaining to Lady Nesbith why her prize begonias are rotting"

The other old man who until a minute ago had seemed to be doing his best not to look at Harry glanced up at Mrs. Adler.

"Why they rotting then?" he said.

"Over watering obviously, Granddad. " Mrs. Adler replied, "Takes a botanist to tell her though." She looked over at Harry. " I leave you in Professor Kirke's capable hands. Your trunk is in the front room"

"Wait. Professor Snape, says I should help you with yourÉ" he paused uncertainly "... with your work"

" I'm just a glorified gardener. Can you repot flowers, lift heavy things and dig holes?"

"Of course!" Harry poked irritably at the glistening yellow yoke of an egg with a fork and began to mop it up with his bread. "I've been doing that for the Dursley's since I was five."

"Tomorrow then. I want Professor Kirke to finish his magical rubbish today"

She was gone before Harry had a chance to say another word. Outside he heard the car start up. He half-heartedly started to load the egg whites onto the remains of his toast.

Professor Kirke leaned over to Harry. " Ignore Abigail, and ignore him" he nodded over towards the other old man who was shooting a glare fit to kill towards Harry and Professor Kirke. "Not one ounce of good manners in the whole family. Their legendary for their stunning ability to be unpleasant to everybody"

Harry nodded not knowing what to say.

"My breakfast got eaten by your blasted owl," said Mrs. Adler's grandfather sourly. He got up from the table and stomped out of the kitchen.

"Brilliant minds though" Kirke added the kitchen door closed with a wave of his wand. " For muggles" he added absently.

Harry looked at Professor Kirke again. " You're a wizard." He said. ÔBut Mrs. Adler and her granddad are muggles"

Kirke nodded vigorously his glasses almost tipping off his head. " Professor Snape has me in charge of strengthening the wards around this place. Not that they're already impressive. Did you see the climbing plants when you came in last night? Some of my best work I think. Though Abigail helped me in selecting the species. I would not have thought Honeysuckle would be the plant to use. " Professor Kirke leaned towards him conspiratorially "I was going to use common ivy."

Harry spent his day sitting out on the front step staring into space and idly drawing patterns in the dust with the tip of his wand. Professor Kirke had finished improving the wards and then left after telling Harry that he'd be returning to recheck the wards once a week, and if Harry had any problems with his summer school work, don't hesitate to ask.

Harry nodded and with out Professor Kirke's agreeably distracting presence he suddenly felt completely drained of all energy and emotion. For the entire summer his mood had been oscillating between fits of extreme anger and bouts of feeling completely and utterly worthless. So much that sometimes at the Dursley's he had just stopped doing _anything,_ and curled up in the nearest corner and cried, and didn't care what the consequences. Right then he just felt empty and drained. He leaned back and bumped his head on the doorframe and ignored the stinging ache in the back of his head.

Moreover, he would have sat there for the rest of the day doing exactly what he had been doing had Adler's grandfather not dragged him bodily inside and insisted he eat lunch.

"You look like a uselessly short scare-crow," The old man told him, sneering. Harry sneered right back at him and the two of them shared a hearty meal of bread, cheese, and ham in a forced silence.

Harry eyed the pickled onions suspiciously and refused to touch the acidic smelling lumpy brown spread in an unmarked jar that was offered.

After the meal was finished, old man regarded Harry expectantly with his black eyes, but didn't say anything. Eventually Harry, for lack of anything better to do retrieved his schoolbooks and parchment from his trunk and started to work.

He wrote a letter to Hermione, which he gave to Hedwig, who returned looking rumpled and annoyed an hour later, Harry's letter still with her. He tried again with Ron, only to find the same result. He could think of three treasons for this, one that they weren't taking his mail, which was unlike. Two, that Voldemort was some-how blocking his mail, which was possibly but unlikely considering the ward's he'd watched being erected. Or three, which to him seemed most likely, the wards on the cottage, prevented the Owl Post from finding their destination.

He thought of the bad tempered owl that delivered Snape's mail, mostly likely Snape's own owl and possibly tied into the wards of the house enabling it to come and go as it's pleased. Harry frowned, folded the two letters that he had written up and tucked them into one of his books. He would try to give them to his friends when he got to Hogwarts. Proof he hadn't forgotten them, he just couldn't write to them.

Mrs. Adler returned to the cottage at five, nervously pulling her long fingers through her grubby black hair. She brought with her a thick unpleasantly organic smell and a mesh bag of lumpy bluish mushrooms.

Harry sat at the kitchen table with his Transfiguration textbook open in front of him and a lukewarm cup of tea he had felt brave enough to make an hour ago. Mrs. Adler's grandfather sat across from him, making a show of ignoring him completely. The old man was studiously piecing small gears into the case of an antique pocket watch. A jeweler's loupe was glued to his eye.

"You smell like pig shite" he said. Dropping the loupe from his eye, he regarded his granddaughter disdainfully.

"Cow shite" she replied and carded her fingers through her greasy hair again, teasing out snags. " Did you have a good day Mr. Potter?"

"The best" replied Harry sarcastically.

Mrs. Adler smiled tightly and not very kindly at him " Is all your wizard rubbish finished then?"

"Yes."

"Good" Mrs. Adler put down her mesh bag of mushrooms on the counter and started banging around with the kettle and teapot.

"Granddad get out," she said to her grandfather, who got up from the table his watchmaker's tools folded away neatly into their felt cloth. He glared daggers at Harry and his granddaughter.

Mrs. Adler continued making tea, filling the kettle from the creaking sink, muttering under her breath as she repeatedly thumbed the pilot light to get the gas stove lit and measuring the tea into the teapot, in three carefully even spoonfuls.

Finally she sat down at the table across from Harry with an empty teacup in her hands.

" I hope you know you do not have my protection because the Headmaster told me I had an obligation to fulfill," she snarled at him, her fingers going white against the teacup.

Harry slammed his book closed "And who says I need your protection? I had plenty of protection at the Dursley's" Harry snarled back.

"Which is why you ran away isn't it?" Mrs. Adler replied nastily.

Harry flushed in humiliated rage as she continued. " Just to get the facts straight in your head. I have no obligation to you or to your headmaster. He labors under the delusion that his control over my family members gives him control over me"

Behind them the kettle whistled and Mrs. Adler got up from the table to fix the tea.

"Then why on earth are you protecting me?"

Mrs. Adler looked over her shoulder at Harry, flicking her black hair out of her face. "Because Severus Snape asked me to."

Harry went to bed still angry. Abigail Adler was as far as he concerned, a nasty, spiteful, mean, unpleasant woman. (And she fed you more for breakfast than the Dursley's did in an entire day, a small voice in the back of his head muttered) And what ever her connection to Professor Snape was just because the stupid git had asked her to protect him (What protection could a muggle give him from Voldemort anyway, even a muggle with spectacularly complicated wards woven into the very stone of her home. Even now he could feel them tickling at the back of his mind) it didn't in anyway mean that he owned Snape _anything._ (Well no more than he had owed the man for repeatedly saving his life.)

Harry went sleep in a spectacularly bad mood, and just as he fell asleep he realized that he hadn't thought of Sirius once today.

He awoke early the next morning, from indistinct dreams that he couldn't remember, but left his skin crawling with revulsion.

The cottage was silent, and it the gray half light he could barely make out his hands in front of him

He heard the floorboards on the landing outside his room creak as some one walked down the hall. Harry swung himself out of bed and carefully put his feet on the floor

It took him five minutes of agonizingly slow movement to cross the tiny room mapping out each and every creak in the floor. Finally he made it to the door and cracked it open ever so slightly. The landing outside his room was abandoned. Who ever it had been walking past his room was now gone

Harry frowned and stepped out onto the landing, the board beneath his food creaking almost the instant he put any weight on it. Harry stilled, listening for any signs of movement from either of the other rooms. He let out a quiet breath and then with the same agonizing slowness that he had used to cross his bedroom to make his way down the stairs into the safety of the kitchen's stone floor.

4:54 the red digital screen on the old gas stove blinked as Harry entered the kitchen. He had gone to bed awfully early, and his body was used to wakening up at ridiculously early times.

"Do you intend to make breakfast Mr. Potter?" said a voice over his left shoulder, Harry turned quickly to find Mrs. Adler smirking at him wearing a threadbare bathrobe over a cotton nightgown, both of which were black. She had appeared behind him with out even making a sound just like the first time he had met him at the train station. " Or are you going to run away again?"

"Do you want me to?" Harry snapped. " Make breakfast, I mean" He flushed angrily.

"Not particularly. I'm fussy enough about food."

Mrs. Adler sounded bored and more than a little tired. Her hair looked worse than ever in the dim light. She yawned.

Harry glared.

Mrs. Adler yawned again. "Do you still intend to help me with my work?" She asked.

"It's not like there is anything else to do!"

"Well then I suggest you get some more sleep" She turned around on her heel, her bathrobe billowing around her and returned upstairs leaving Harry standing alone in the middle of the kitchen.


	2. Severus Snape

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and C.S. Lewis owns Digory Kirke. IÕm not creative enough to come up with either.

Rating: PG-13 to light R (for swearing, violence, and general misanthropy)

Spoilers: Sixth Year AU (elements of HBP incorporated)

Summery: Nazis, homicidal Catholics, and Severus SnapeÕs cousins, Harry certainly has his hands full of people trying to kill him this year.

All That History Gives You

By coldthing

Part II: Severus Snape

Harry lay on his back in the middle of Green Cottage's front lawn. It was mid evening and Harry was watching the first fireflies emerge from the thicket of honeysuckle that covered the cottage. Harry scratched at the peeling sunburn on his nose.

The past few weeks had consisted of waking up early, being fed breakfast and then helping Mrs. Adler take care of the expansive gardens at the local manor house. (Mrs. Adler, who, since he met her at 4:54 the second night at Green Cottage, was always awake before he was, defying every expectation he had of her, Harry was not used to anyone waking up before him during the summer.) It was usually late evening when they'd return to Green cottage where he'd be left to his own devices for the rest of the day. He could do homework, he could help Mrs. Adler prepare dinner, or he could lie around doing absolutely nothing.

Professor Kirke had returned weekly as promised, he checked the wards, which consisted of checking the soil consistency around the cottage, and rewriting the arithmantic equations above the doors and windows. Before he left he slipped Harry three thick books. Two were on Occulmency, and the third on Transfiguration. In turn Mrs. Adler had handed him three Cornwall reinforced clay pots containing purple bulb-headed flowers, Harry overheard her muttering something about ' last time I ever try to cultivate _fitillaria meleagris'_

He'd had his first Vision, or dream or what ever they were as You-Know-Who last night. It hadn't been nearly as bad as it could have been; he'd woken up feeling like his head was splitting down the middle and an intense desire to break the room's small window. He'd punched the wall instead and the bloody knuckles he came away with somehow made him feel much better. After that Harry started reading the Occlumency books

He'd still not been able to shake the desire to break things for the rest of the day, he felt it coiled up in the back of his head and already he'd had two screaming matches with the as always completely unflappable Mrs. Adler. He'd been the one doing the screaming; the first time she'd raised her thick black eyebrows at him and told him to move the begonias another two feet southward where they'd get better light. The second time she'd not even dignified him with any change in expression but instead rapped his hand hard with a wooden serving spoon and told him to set the table.

And to top it off he still had no inking as to who she was or the why she was protecting him. A few nights ago he'd come up with a list regarding who Mrs. Adler was. It had looked something like this:

_Things I know about Mrs. Adler_

_Muggle (thinks magic is 'rubbish')_

_Calls Prof. Snape by first name _

_NOT a deatheater (at least no mark, and why recruit a muggle?)_

_Doesn't flinch at Voldemort's name_

_Doesn't like Headmstr Dumbledore (takes Prof. Snape's request over Headmstr's) control over members of her family? Is Snape her family? would mean he was a half-blood._

_Has advanced herbol botany? degree. Works as gardener_

_Is she married or not? Mrs. But no husband?_

And then under all that he wrote

Possible Connections to Prof. Snape?

He underlined it twice, then after staring at it for a few moments of coming up with nothing he scratched it out, crumpled up the paper into a ball, and stuffed it into his trunk.

Harry had his second dream as You-Know-Who that night.

He was very pleased.

Two hours ago McNair had found Harry in the Malfoy library poring over a battered copy of Grindelwald, The Church, and the Teutonic Knights: An Alternative Reading of the Second World War. The copy at some point had belonged in the Hogwarts Restricted Section, but he'd liberated it years ago and doubted they missed it. Very few wizards had any interest in the Second World War, as far as they were concerned it was an entirely muggle affair and what ever wizarding parties had been involved had never made it off the continent.

"We've caught him, my lord"

Klaus Eckstein, formerly the leader of Grindelwald's elitist of followers, the Teutonic Knights was dragged forward by two masked deatheaters. He'd had a group of deatheaters traipsing all across the Continent and good portions of Asia looking for this man.

Eckstein was covered in mud and he was bleeding from gashes all across his face. He wore a threadbare muggle suite.

"Show it to me"

The death eater holding Eckstein's left arm reached over and unbuttoned Eckstein shirt. He pulled the fabric free and displayed a thick black cross with flared ends branded just above Eckstein's heart.

Harry stood up and took Eckstein's blood jaw in one hand and pulled the small man to his feet. He looked over to the death eater nearest to him

" Where did you find him?" he asked. Eckstein gurgled blood onto Harry's hand in his attempts to get out of the strong grip.

"In a slum in Paris"

"Imagine that. "

"_Ja, Herrle_. Imagine that" Eckstein echoed as Harry's fingers slipped on the blood coating Eckstein's jaw as the German pulled free.

A flare of anger roiled deep inside Harry's gut. He reached out again smacking Eckstein across the face.

The German looked back at him defiantly. _"Leck mich im arsch" _he said and snickered. Then he wrenched his arm free from the death eater holding it and drew his wand and fired of a whiplash of green light at Harry

Harry took a few steps back dodging the lash of color impacted against the wall and raised his wand. ÒIdiot! I told you to disarm him!"

Eckstein held his gnarled, twisted wand out and began to back up towards the door.

Harry rolled off the bed and cracked his head against the floor. From the pain in his head he couldn't do much more than curl up into a ball and clasp his head. His eyes shut so tightly that tears began to ooze out.

He only barely heard the creak of a footstep inside his room before he felt a cold hand on his back.

"Shhhhh" Mrs. Adler reached over and put her freezing, damp hands on his forehead. Their coldness sank into his skin. Harry tried to shove her away, but she held him tightly around the shoulders and his knees were starting to cramp up.

"Stop it!" He told her. "It wasn't that bad. Let me go"

"Not a chance" She pulled him roughly to his feet, and held him steady as he stamped out the cramps knees, her cold hand still on his forehead.

"If that wasn't that badÉ." Mrs. Adler started to say.

"Stop it!" Harry told her. " I don't want your help"

Mrs. Adler let out a hiss of irritation through her teeth, and flicked her hair. " You, Mr. Potter, never really had a choice in the matter" She helped him back onto the bed.

Harry's hands were shaking at he tried to pull her hands off his face.

Finally she let go. "Wait here. I'll get you something to help you sleep"

"No, no, wait, I don't want to go back to sleep"

Mrs. Adler ignored him and left the room, Harry heard the creak of the stairs. He stared stupidly at his bedclothes and twiddled his thumbs and thought rebelliously about getting out of bed. Downstairs a cupboard opened, then the fridge opened, and liquid poured. The stairs creaked again.

Mrs. Adler returned and thrust a glass filled mostly with ice, at him. At the bottom of the glass was a small measure of something amber colored and smelling strongly of alcohol.

Harry sniffed it. "This is scotch," he said accusingly.

Mrs. Alder raised an eyebrow. " I'm glad you recognize it. Drink, it'll help you sleep." She said.

Harry downed the glass with one fast swallow; the scotch burned the back of his throat and he felt heat rising under his ears.

Mrs. Adler smiled and took the glass back from him. "I might have added John the Conqueror root to it as well"

"You bastard" Harry managed to slur before his head landed on the pillow again and was dead asleep.

Severus Snape caught up with the German after about three hours of stalking through the wet, dewy underbrush in the early morning half-light

Eckstein was hidden half asleep in a small thick copse of trees, none of the wounds the Death Eaters had inflicted on him in during his capture had healed, and his color looked awful. Apparently, the escape had not been nearly as easy as he had made it look.

" _Du, wichser. _Taking me back to your _Herrle_?" Eckstein was more awake than he looked; the German struggled to retrieve his gnarled twisted excuse for a wand from his coat pocket.

Snape was on him before he even got his arm across his body to retrieve it. " We did eliminate your wand if I remember correctly. McNair _broke_ it"

Eckstein's throat bobbed against Snape's wand tip. Snape kicked it out of his hand. It looked like little more than two thin twigs braided together and tied with horsehair.

"That thing?" Eckstein managed to smile nervously. "Never used it much. Results were always unstable. Very inefficient."

There was something very wrong. Snape took a step back. Eckstein had far to many teeth in his mouth to behuman. Snape, his own wand still aimed at the German, bent down, and picked up Eckstein's wand. He ran his fingers along the wand's uneven surface

"Braided mistletoe and hag's hair, defiantly not a human's wand. Tell me, did Grindelwald know you weren't human?"

"_Schleich dich_!" Eckstein made an angry bleating nose deep in his throat; he tried to scramble away from Snape's wand.

"No need for obscenities. _Verum in vultus_" Snape's spell caught Eckstein before he could get out of range. The German collapsed into the underbrush

Snape prodded Eckstein's prone body with the tip of his boot, and then knelt down, wand still at the ready, to turn the other man over.

A hoof caught Snape in the stomach, knocking him backwards and kicking the wind out of him. Eckstein scrambled forwards, head butting Snape around the waist and dragged him to the ground the rest of the air in his lungs coming out in one big wheeze. Eckstein sank his teeth into Snape's shoulder.

Eckstein's eyes were bright yellow; all those sharp teeth were embedded in his shoulder. Hoofs. One came down hard on his shin.

Snape pushed at Eckstein's head ripping the creature's teeth out of his shoulder, he rolled over trapping Eckstein below him. Horns. Eckstein's teeth, already red with both of their blood snapped closed far to close to his cheek for his comfort.

Through the scuffle he'd managed to keep his wand. He jabbed it, hard, into Eckstein's throat.

"Hoofs, horns, yellow eyes, and a mistletoe wand."

Eckstein gurgled in protest.

"I do suppose you're a satyr. _Stupify!"_

Midday sunlight cut into Harry's eyes jarring him awake. He head was fuzzy, his mouth was dry and his eyes stung.

"You can't dose him John the Conqueror every time something happens!" a familiar voice drifted upstairs through the floor.

"Oh and you would probably overdose him on Valerian and kill him I suppose" Mrs. Adler snapped in reply.

"Valerian has a much better reputation. How do you know John the Conqueror won't send him into a trance?"

"And how do you know Valerian won't either?"

"Don't you dare lecture me about the properties of Valerian"

Mrs. Adler's grandfather's voice broke into the argument. " You're both acting like soddin' children again."

Harry could hear the Mrs. Adler and the man she was arguing with both draw breath getting ready to launch in their argument again. He rolled off the bed trying to put his foot down on the floorboards as quietly as possible.

"Shut up Severus. He's awake"

Harry cursed; Mrs. Adler had the habit of always knowing exactly where he was in the house and what he was doing.

"You're lurking again Mr. Potter. What did I tell you about lurking?" Her voice drifted up though the floorboards.

And then " Potter!"

Now that Harry knew. Professor Snape was downstairs. Guilt stabbed through his gut, but he pushed it down and buried it under layers of irritation and anger.

"Bugger" said Harry "Just what I need." he struggled to get dressed before Snape decided to humiliate him completely and barge in on him half dressed.

Ten minutes later Harry rushed into the kitchen just in time to hear a flowerpot crashing against the wall in the greenhouse.

Mrs. Adler stormed out; her cheeks flushed red under her suntan. She stomped up the stairs and disappeared into the second floor.

Professor Snape emerged from the greenhouse brushing dirt off of his black jumper.

Wait, Snape, jumper?

"Good morning Professor Snape' Harry managed to blurt.

"Afternoon Mr. Potter. Sit down"

Harry looked down at the floor. He stared at the ladder laces on Snape's black work boots and the meticulously folded cuffs of his trousers. He wore a black wool jumper over an equally meticulously creased white work shirt. Despite the proletarian ensemble, Snape still emulated barely disguised menace, now tinged with an unpleasant sense of violence.

"Yes sir" He didn't sit down.

Snape angrily kicked out a chair from under the table. He thrust it at Harry.

"Sit down Mr. Potter" Snape said warningly.

Harry sat down so fast his head stung. An apology welled up in the back of his throat but he angrily thrust it back down. Snape did not deserve apologies, thanks, be might begrudge him, but apologies? Never.

"I trust Mrs. Adler is treating you adequately," Snape continued, pulling out a chair on the other side of the table. He sat down and rested his elbows on the table.

Harry sat stiffly in his chair starring at a point just left of Snape's shoulder. "Yes sir" he replied. Part of him wanted to add all the details about adequate food and no backbreaking labor and nicer living conditions and he could go on and on, He doubted Snape would care, or believe him for that matter.

He stared at the floor.

"Mrs. Adler says you had a dream last night. Tell me the details."

"Why? Weren't you there?"

"No. I didn't become involved until later."

"And why isn't Dumbledore here?"

"Not your concern."

Harry angrily stared at the tabletop. "I want tea. That stuff she gave me is still making me fuzzy" He didn't wait for permission from Snape, got up from the table, and pulled out the kettle down from on top of the stove.

"I can give you some mugwort. There is some in the greenhouse"

"No thanks. Sir." Harry filled the kettle and pulled the tea can from inside the breadbox. He lit the pilot lighter, lit the stove, and set the kettle on the flame. He emptied the cold tea out of the teapot into the sink.

"IÉVoldemÉ" Harry started "You-Know-Who, he was reading, a book on the Second World War. From Hogwarts. And then Walden McNair came in and told him that they'd caught this man who was a follower of Grindelwald." Harry stared at the kettle trying to dredge up the memory of slapping Eckstein across the face. " And then the man, Eckstein, escaped" The whole thing, even so tightly abridged left him feeling angry and wanting to hurt things. He gripped onto the kettle's handle so tightly his hand turned red than white.

Behind him Snape snorted and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "That was pathetic Mr. Potter"

"I'mÉ'm sorry sir"

Snape didn't answer for a long moment; he stared at a point just past Harry his bony fingers fiddling uncomfortably with the cuff of his jumper. Harry made himself tea with copious amounts milk and sugar.

Finally, Snape pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. The Mark stood out through the thick hair on his forearms. "I don't take milk in my tea, the lemons are behind the coal scuttle with the potatoes" Snape said grim determination. " Now try again. Tell me what you saw."

After Potter had left in a huff and very nearly in tears, Severus Snape stood and emptied is teacup into the sink. He washed the cup slowly and methodically. Potter was surly which he expected, but even with the remains of You-Know-Who's anger roiling below the surface of his mind Potter was strangely restrained. That Severus hadn't expected. (But then he felt the need to remind himself the boy had made it to Green Cottage, Severus had had a bet with himself that Potter would throw himself in front of the train rather than take orders form him.)

However, the restraint wasn't passivity, or submissiveness, Potter wasn't cowed in the least, if anything he'd just redirected his anger inside. Not always the best option he decided, but the less egotistical the boy was the easier it was to endure his presence.

He hadn't even fought back after the fifth retelling of his vision. At that point, Severus had gotten sick of toying with him and triumphantly listening to the catch in his voice watching Potter's eyes flare with vicious anger, as he described smacking Klaus Eckstein across the face.

He heard the sound of Abigail pacing in her room waiting for him to leave so she could come down again and clean up the mess in the green house.

He could see Potter out the back window lying on his stomach in the middle of the back garden with Belanus Cadoc's The Delicate Art of Occlumancy open in front of him. The other book Professor Kirke had given him Severus had proclaimed to be garbage, but Cadoc's book was a good solid grounding in the basics. He would return next week and lessons would resume. He hoped this new subdued, calculating Potter might prove less infuriating.

Abigail's boots sounded on the upstairs landing. She appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Bugger off, Severus," she told him nastily. " Its bad enough I have to take care of that whelp with out having to see you moping about the house like you used to"

"You haven't improved him," he told her spitefully. " I would have thought that your unique ability to treat everyone like dirt could improve even an arrogant brat like him"

"If you stopped toying with him you might find that I have." She replied taking a few more steps down, "and don't you dare talk all posh at me!" she hissed " I have your father come by every month to shout abuse at me and granddad. Maybe I'll tell him you've been around, see how he likes it."

Severus's mouth flattened into a thin line "Your still petty and spiteful"

Abigail sneered. "So are you."

Severus Snape found Hagrid, the Headmaster in the infirmary with Madame Pomfrey tending to its newest resident.

Klaus Eckstein was fading in and out of unconsciousness his legs overshooting the end of the infirmary bed, so much that the tips of his hooves brushed the floor.

Fading into consciousness he growled and his teeth snapped closed inches from Madam Pomfrey's hands as she changed the bandages on his shoulders. Moment's later his head thumped back on to the pillow.

Hagrid gently lifted one of Eckstein's hooves off the floor and examined the inside of the delicate clove hoof. "He's been shod before, so 'e's not wild dwelling." He said. "Though 'e hasn't for years. Can still the nail marks, 'ere, and 'ere" Eckstein woke up slightly and attempted to lift his head off the bed. He jerked his leg weakly against Hagrid's tight grip. _"Lo§ la§en!"_

"If he's _the_ Klaus Eckstein of course he's' not wild dwelling" Snape snapped at Hagrid "This, this, _creature_ held a important position in the Reichstag. I should never have brought it back here"

"You tommy bastards" Eckstein was suddenly fully awake; he attempted to pull himself off the bed, his legs jerking up, before being snapped back into immobility by a spell. Hagrid dropped the hoof,

"He held that position until 1945, until I thought I killed him." The Headmaster pursed his lips "Though it seems I only took off one of his horns" Dumbledore bent over Eckstein, and fingered the stub of the satyr's left horn. Eckstein, unable to move freely recoiled from him, his yellow eyes bulging. "_Ich bring dich um_," He hissed through his teeth.

Severus flinched; his shoulder ached at the memory of Eckstein's teeth sinking into his own flesh.

Eckstein chuckled from the bed noticing his reaction. " Not in much better condition are we _Herr-Professor"_

_"Halts maul oder du fŠngsch eine!" _Snape snapped.

"Oh so you do speak German!" Eckstein sounded pleased, his head rolled back and he howled with laughter.

Snape leaned over to the Headmaster "You should get rid of it, it's insane"


	3. Birgit’s Cross

Part III: Birgit's Cross

Harry had another dream. It was raining hard.

His boots sank into the soft peat covering the bluff in Country Kildare. It over looked the roiling sea. The air was thick with the smell of salt water and musty earth.

He had a woman by the neck, her red hair was pulled free from its elaborate braid, and it flapped about her head. She was bleeding from her nose and ears. He held her high up, the tips of her delicate leather boots barely brushing the peat.

"Kelly Kildare?" Harry asked her gently.

"Yes," She spluttered, spitting out rainwater.

"Mother of James, Brendan, and Samuel. Wife of Hugh Kildare" Harry's voice is still gentle. Kelly Kildare's reliquary wand glittered beneath his boot. He pretended he doesn't see her looking desperately down at it.

"Aodh. My husband's name is Aodh" She replied, and coughed, blood dribbled down her chin.

Harry lowered her slightly so that her body wasn't stretched out to impossible proportions.

"Aodh then." He kept his voice calm; he reached in to her mind, and gently probed through her memory of the three sons. Kelly Kildare suddenly started shaking uncontrollably. "I know one of your boys' talks to snakes. Which one is it?"

Her eyes went huge. "There hasn't been a nathair-beal in the Kildare line for 200 years" she squeezed her eyes closed again, attempting to force him out of her mind. " The trait is extinct in our family. Please believe me, my Lord, the Kildare's, we're pure" She started to sob. " We...we, would have joined you...if, if you'd have us." Harry wasn't listening as he pulled out of her mind, so suddenly her head whipped forwards splattering her blood on the front of his robes. No names, just:

_Fire rippling across the surface of freezing cold Poit'n as a man doused a gold wand core._

_Boys playing Quidditch, stumbling into the neighbor's barley crop and cutting a swath across it in search of an out of control Bludger._

_A little boy with a pink new scar on his left cheek holding a garden snake._

Harry dropped Kelly Kildare onto the ground; she collapsed into a sobbing bundle at his feet.

"_Avada Kedavra_" With a flash of green light she keeled over onto the wet peat, her eyes wide open.

Suddenly the air was filled with deep hum, so low Harry felt the ground vibrating below his boots. A ray of yellow light shot up from the nearby Kildare Homestead's chimney. A glowing straw cross exploded in the sky above the farmhouse. The farmhouse was bathed in yellow light. Harry couldn't see the farmhouse anymore, only that floating yellow cross.

"MA!" The young man emerged from the yellow light, only to be cursed down by McNair.

"Wait he might be..."

The young man collapsed to the ground, quite dead.

"Idiot!" Harry was at the young man's body in a second. He lifted his head up. His eyes were pale blue; they stared blankly up at him, the irises already starting to fade. He had a burn scar between his eyes, and uneven port wine birthmark on his neck, but no remains of a scar on his cheek.

McNair knelt beside him, "My apologies" He didn't sound sorry.

"Idiot! He could have been the one we're looking for"

Suddenly Harry heard the prolonged crack of side-along-apparition Faintly he heard some one whisper, "Wait!"

Then, unexpectedly, "_Tine cœlaithe! Crois Birgit!" _Some one shouted. Bright gouts of flame shot out from the hovering straw cross engulfing the death eaters nearest to the house.

He heard shouts from the direction of his remaining followers curses hurled in the direction of the voice. "_Extundo_! _Infindo_!"

The newcomer, a boy, probably not even out of school yet jerked backwards, as his chest compressed violently, his ribs cracked audibly. He coughed up blood; his black hair was instantly matted from a series of long slashes across his scalp before his chest even had a chance to expand again.

"_Reducto_!" There was some one else who had arrived with the boy. " Stop it!" The other new comer shouted. He shot out the thick rain, all fierce blue eyes and flapping black Auror's robes,

"_Dermis Inflamare!" _Harry heard somewhere through the rain.

The blue-eyed Auror was almost on him; Harry raised his wand. "_Crucio_!"

Harry rolled off the bed his stomach roiling, the shape taste of bile building at the back of his throat. His head felt like it was being split in half from back and front. He wanted to hit something; to sink his nails into somebody. In an attempt to bleed off some of the anger he awkwardly kicked out at the chest of drawers His foot cracked through the old wood.

The bile taste in his mouth was stronger, and he could feel a hitch in his throat as the roiling in his stomach moved up his diaphragm.

He wrenched his now bleeding out of the hole he had made in the chest of drawers, struggled to his feet, and limped to the bathroom. Distantly he heard the sound of a door slamming at the end of the hall.

But the nausea was at the back of his throat now; he made it to the toilet just in time before he retched.

Plant fertilizer. Mrs. Adler put a cold hand on his neck, the other gathering his hair out of his face. He gagged, and felt his diaphragm contract again; and spat out a thin trail of yellow bile and saliva into the toilet.

The back of his throat tasted sour, he sat back against Mrs. Adler.

"Is my cooking that bad?" she asked dryly.

"Fuck off" he told her, his head still felt like some one was hammering a marlinspike into in to his scar.

Mrs. Adler hissed in irritation at him. She leaned over him; he felt her grimy hair touch his cheek. Her hands were cold on his forehead.

"Your hands so cold" He moaned. He could see the blood from his foot on the bathroom's cracked blue floor tiles.

"As were my father's and my grandfather's and my great grandfather's before him" she hooked a strong, bony arm under his armpits and pulled him into a standing position. "Its part of the family legacy." She chuckled and caught him as he staggered a little " come on, let me bandage that foot, then we need to get you re-hydrated, or you'll start retching again."

Mrs. Adler gently prodded him downstairs where she flipped on the kitchen light 3:27, read the clock in the stove. She sat him down at the table and set about opening cupboards, pulling out glasses, a package of water crackers, and a skinny unlabeled bottle half full of amber scotch. From the fridge she pulled out orange juice and ice cubes.

"Drink. I didn't put anything in it this time." She set a full glass of orange juice in front of Harry. Then handed him a dishcloth full of ice cubes. "And put that on the back of your neck"

Harry wrinkled his nose, and rubbed his forehead attempting to dispel the residual ache. Mrs. Adler sat down across from him.

" My glasses are still upstairs," he said numbly.

" You don't need glasses to drink orange juice and eat crackers," Mrs. Adler snapped at him, she poured herself a glass of Scotch.

"Your like the Mrs. Weasley from hell"

Mrs. Adler snorted "Hah! God forbid. Could this family be that simperingly nice" She kicked back the glass of scotch, and then poured another.

Harry blinked owlishly at her and sipped his orange juice, his other hand occupied with keeping the ice pack on his neck.

His vision was blurry, in the bright light of the kitchen he could make out the vague shapes of most things. Living there for a while, he had memorized that the big blob to his left was the fridge and blob behind Mrs. Adler was the stove.

"You've met Mrs. Weasley."

He couldn't see if Mrs. Adler had nodded or shaken her head, but she didn't answer for a long moment.

"Briefly. When my husband was still alive. It was your Headmaster's idea, my only contact with the wizarding world being Severus."

Harry heard the clink of her putting her glass down on the tabletop.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"We, Mrs. Weasley and I, we didn't get along. " Mrs. Adler finally said quietly.

Harry looked down at the half glass of orange juice, the nausea was gone, but his mouth still tasted sour. He took another sip and rubbed his forehead, flattening his hair over his scar for good measure.

"Why are you protecting me? You don't like me, you don't like magic, and you don't like Professor Dumbledore!" Harry couldn't see Mrs. Adler's face clearly, but he was sure she was frowning.

"I told you, because Severus asked me to" she sounded irritated, like having told him once should have been enough for him. Her wedding ring clinked against her glass.

Harry chewed thoughtfully on the edge of a cracker. His stomach still felt like he'd been punched, but he no longer felt like he was going to vomit again. He wanted his glasses; not being able to see Mrs. Adler's expressions clearly was starting to make him frustrated.

"But Professor Snape hates me, he'd never volunteer anyone to protect me." He said.

Mrs. Adler shrugged. "Who knows why, we, Snapes', we, keep our cards close to our chests."

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but found it took him a moment longer to process then he had originally thought.

"You're...You're.. related to Professor Snape?" He finally managed

"Mr. Potter, I'm surprised you didn't notice the family resemblance."

Even though his vision was blurry, he could make Mrs. Adler flip her hair out of her face.

Harry looked down into his nearly empty glass of orange juice. "I've had a lot on my mind" He said. Something deep inside him felt brittle and ready to snap. He tipped up his orange juice just as Mrs. Adler did with her whiskey and finished it.

"I should go back to bed." He picked his glass and stumbled over to sink.

"Mr. Potter" Mrs. Adler said as Harry started towards the stairs. She hesitated. "I don't dislike you. I just don't take well to change, none of us do. You're an intelligent young man, with a force of personality that serves you well " she hiccupped slightly. "Please get some more sleep if you can. I can give you a tincture of John the Conqueror if you want. Severus will be here in the morning."

"Thanks" Harry said, " I'm ok now" and wandered numbly upstairs, to his room and over to his bed and curled up into the smallest ball he could possibly imagine and cried.

Nymphadora Tonks was probably the first person in England to hear conformation of the attack. Right from the source in fact.

Samuel Kildare growled at her, showing all his teeth. They'd transferred him and his younger brother to St. Mungo's after St. John of God's in Cork decided they couldn't handle the damage caused by a partial animagus half-crazed with pain.

The Healer's were sure he'd lost the left ear and two of the fingers off the left hand. (Well the matter had been, they couldn't actually find the left ear, or the fingers, and the consensus was that they'd been vaporized.) Nevertheless, with luck he'd been told, Kildare would be able to keep the eye, though if he kept clawing at the bandages, it was another story.

Kildare growled at her again, his features were mostly intact, but his cheeks had gone furry, and through the bindings keeping him to the bed his knees looked, they were trying to flip themselves around.

The younger brother was still unconscious in the next bed. Kingsley could not remember his name, only that he was still at Hogwarts. A healer efficiently re-wrapped the bandages on his left arm while a spell mirrored her actions on the other. Samuel had refused to be parted from the brother, and on threat ripping anyone bodily apart, they had been given a room together. He could hear their father, Hugh Kildare's, voice outside the room as he swore alternately at a Ministerial Assistant, the press, and the doctors.

Tonks slowly held a hand towards Samuel, " Wotcher Sam, its Tonks, you remember. You got me drunk my second year. Come on, Sam, please don't."

She remembered Samuel; he's been a Ravenclaw, three years ahead of her. He'd been amazing at Charms and hopeless at Transfiguration. He had a face like a bulldog and he'd once drank a whole keg of Madame Rosemerta's best lager before being sick in Potions the next day. They'd been friends.

Samuel stopped growling for a moment, still showing his teeth, he nosed at Tonks's palm, sniffing. Samuel's lips and gums came back over his teeth, she brushed her hand over non injured side of his head and then withdrew his hand as Samuel came back to himself shaking his head as if to get rain water out of his hair.

"What happened?" he struggled to reach up and touched the bandage covering the remains of his ear. He shook his head again " Something happened when Bren and I got back from Cork" His head landed back on the pillow, he glanced over at Tonks "What are you doing at St John's? Come all the way to Ireland to see me?"

"Your at St. Mungo's Sam" she told him. "St John's couldn't handle the damage you were causing."

"Oh." Samuel looked around. "I haven't been here since school" he still looked disoriented. "Where are Bren and James? And my parents?"

"Your younger brother's here. Your dad's outside."

Samuel looked over at the prone form of his younger brother a low rumbling growl began to build somewhere in his chest. "Dora? Where are Ma and James?" he asked, his cheeks were beginning to fur over again.

"Some one attacked your farm. They found evidence it was You-Kn..."

Before Tonks could get any further, Samuel surged, snarling off the bed towards him. The magical bindings automatically tightened around his chest and arms sending him crashing back down to the bed. " Death Eaters" She heard Samuel growl before his mouth was rendered incapable of human speech.

The healer who had a minute before been tending to Samuel's brother rushed over to the bed " Now look what you've done." She told Tonks reproachfully. "Get out while I try to calm him down again."

Professor Snape sat at the kitchen table just as he always did when he arrived at Green Cottage. His left ankle turning irritated circles just off the floor. His nose in the Daily Prophet.

Harry felt Snape's mental fingers brush at his mind faintly before three weeks worth of fairly successful Occlumency Harry pushed everything behind a mask of Voldemort's rage and Snape's mental fingers quickly backed off.

Mrs. Adler was prodding around the cupboards, producing a vast amount of dried plants in jars; every so often, she directed a silent glare at Professor Snape's back. "How is your foot?" She mouthed to Harry. Harry shrugged, his foot ached, but that was hardly a problem.

Snape tossed two letters onto the kitchen table as Harry sat down "Your OWLs and your Hogwarts letter, you can review them on the way."

"On the way? On the way where?"

" Convent Alley. In York, Diagon Alley is far too visible"

"Going? I'm going to buy my school supplies. With You?"

"Believe me Potter, I'm not happy about it either" Snape violently folded up his copy of the Prophet at rammed it into a bag which hung over the back of his chair. His boots creaked ominously as his stood up "Well?" He scowled at Harry. Behind him, Mrs. Adler dropped a jar on the floor and looked like she was trying to stifle howling laughter.

Harry frowned, it was still another week before his birthday, and he usually didn't get his Hogwarts letter until after that. Then, maybe Snape was trying to keep him out site by first taking him to Convent Alley, which Harry assumed was the York equivalent of Diagon Alley, and secondly taking him before anyone else got their letters.


End file.
